Nat Turners Rebellion Research Paper

Turner’s Rebellion changes Slavery There have been few significant slave revolts in the United States before 1831 despite the large amounts of slaves. Because of the lack of unsuccessful slave revolts, slave owners felt confident in their control over their slaves. Nat Turner’s rebellion overthrew the idea altogether. Nat Turner and s group of rebel slaves killed around 55 to 65 whites, being the highest deaths by a slave revolt. Though take down in a few days it arose a widespread of fear. The state of Virginia killed 56 slaves being accused of being involved and hundreds more were murdered by whites. The rebellion caused state legislatures to prohibit the education of slaves in the south to potentially stop any future uprising by slaves.

Southern slave owners blamed the Northern abolitionists for provoking slaves to rebel and worried for future revolts. In fear of more revolts like that of Nat Turner, whites retaliated murdering blacks suspected of participating in the rebellion. The “white-controlled newspapers portrayed Turner as a sub-human fanatic, and distanced his motivation from any accepted religious experience” (Drexler-Dreis 231) in order to justify their past actions. One of the articles Nat Turner’s Rebellion as a Process of Conversion: Towards a Deeper Understanding of the Christian by Joseph Drexler-Dreis depicted Turner and his group of rebels as a “parcel of blood-thirsty wolves rushing down from the Alps” (Drexler-Dreis 232) and stated Turner being a fake preacher with no purpose. The whites accused blacks in other southern states of being involved, and murdered about two hundred slaves that were not even involved in the revolt. In Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Linda Bret (Harriet Jacobs, Jacobs writes about her experience from a town almost seventy miles from Southampton. She mentions many innocent blacks being targeted and whites planting evidence to convict them. The widespread of fear throughout the south of future slave rebellions becomes visible. That led to Virginia arguing the idea of it not being a slave state. The state split between slaveholders wanting slavery and non-slaveholders wanting to abolish all blacks from Virginia. This would remove all blacks and prevent any more revolts against the whites but many argued the importance of the slavery system and its benefits with the control of no future rebellions. Slaveholder’s perused for more violent forms of punishment to ensure stability but with the knowledge of the fear slaves have put upon the whites, the continuation of slaves became